


good courage and gentle forces

by gatheringbones



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Eventual kissing, F/M, Romance, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, frankly a whole lot of talking, joke mentions to animal abuse, sturdy beefy people being Good to one another
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-08-17 13:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8145131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gatheringbones/pseuds/gatheringbones
Summary: Krem and Harding and a slow, slantwise slide into the nicest relationship ever.Featuring Dalish, Skinner, those two Scouts who stand by the stables and bicker in Haven, and frequent mentions of sheep and animal husbandry. Ongoing.





	1. Chapter 1

 

* * *

  


It helped that Krem knew he was extremely handsome.

“You are _very_ handsome,” said Dalish.

He sat with this remark for a moment or so, then accepted the truth of it by taking another pull off his bottle.

Skinner’s face shifted into a sneer without seeming to move very much at all. It was a talent of hers. “He is square. He is like box with ears.” She sniffed, the tip of her knife dipping under the white of her nail to lever out some imaginary detritus. She had not been holding a knife at the beginning of the conversation, but Krem had long suspected she had been stashing spares underneath the bar top for moments exactly like this.

“Nonsense,” said Dalish, sounding offended to her very core. “He’s as handsome as they come.”

“Thanks,” said Krem.

“He is a _handsome_ box with _handsome_ ears,” said Dalish. “Sturdy. Reliable _._ Good for, _”_ she gestured, “…stacking.”

“Well--” said Krem.

“In my city we do not kiss boxes,” said Skinner. “We find nice boy with sharp face. Then we do crime at him.”

The three of them let that information settle as much as it was ever going to.

Eventually, Dalish turned to him and patted his arm very kindly. “You are a handsome boy,” she said seriously. “I think you should go talk to that nice girl and tell her about your arm muscles.”

Across the tavern, as pretty as a picture and completely oblivious to the conversation currently taking place at the bar, Lace Harding chatted amiably with a handful of the other Scouts, a pot of tea steaming gently in the center of their table.

Skinner’s eyes followed where they were looking, then narrowed. “Yes. Good. Another box person. You will have things to talk about.”

“Sure,” said Krem.

 

 

* * *

 

“Evening,” said Krem.

The bar had mostly already cleared out by then, what with the change in the guard shift and the sudden arrival of a handful of nobles who had set up court in one of the corner tables. (Nobles were….. fine, in Krem’s opinion; the Chief provided a good enough buffer to weed out the worst offenders, and most of the ones working for the Inquisitor were all right, but this close to Orlais the odds of running into a decent person with a lineage attached grew slimmer and slimmer. This batch hadn’t made the cut. Krem supposed it came with the gold peacock feathers.)

The bar never _closed_ per se; the barman kept a pallet in the backroom for the quieter hours, but apparently Lady Montilyet had seen to it that pretty much everyone could expect to come off a shift and be able to eat and enjoy a pint no matter the hour. The people with stranger schedules appreciated it-- the Scouts in particular, and Charter and her people-- and Krem liked it because he hadn’t had anything approaching a regular sleep schedule since he was sixteen.

And, well, because it meant he was still fresh-faced and mostly sober at an hour where the rest of the competition had begged off for some shut-eye.

Leaving him here, still at the bar, tipping his beer in Harding’s direction as she approached.

She blinked at him. “Oh, hey,” she said with genuine friendliness. “How’s it going?”

The Scouts had been over in western Orlais for three weeks, slogging through some of the roughest, driest desert country Krem had ever had the bad fortune to acquaint himself with, and Harding’s freckles had darkened into a nut-brown map across her face. The effect was offensively charming.

Krem shrugged, his beer halfway to his lips. “Can’t complain.”

“Well that’s good,” said Harding. “If somebody starts complaining around here we’re probably going to have to pack up and find a new fortress.”

Her head turned away the exact moment that Dalish chose to give a double thumbs up from across the room.

Krem’s entire professional life had relied on his ability to keep his face perfectly impassive while various people around him elected not to do the same. Back home, it had meant being bundled into non-commissioned officer rank as soon as his superiors had figured out that there was basically nothing a blooded member of the aristocracy could do around Serventi Aclassi that would warrant a raised eyebrow. Here, it meant the Chief buying him drinks every time they got hired by an Orlesian.

He changed the subject.

“Heard you and your boys ran into a swarm of Venatori out west,” he said, propping his elbow on the bartop as Harding wrangled a beer out of Cabot. “Must have been a good scrap.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Sure, but we’re not supposed to scrap. We’re supposed to look at things, go ‘Huh, weird,’ then run back and tell somebody else.”

“Aw, s’not what I heard,” said Krem. “No supply lines, no backup, all travel-by-night and secrets.”

Harding’s eyes creased at him. “We set fire to some tents,” she admitted. “Some magister yelled at the slaves to stop throwing sand at it because he was going to take care of it.”

“What, with blood magic?”

It was her turn to shrug. “Maybe. ‘Course that was when the varghests we’d lured over the dunes came to investigate the noise. He seemed pretty busy after that.”

“ _Nice._ ”

“I know, right?”

They grinned at each other, Harding still holding her beer and showing no indication of going back to sit with the other Scouts. Her hair was mussed, but still in its usual bun, and the laces at her throat were open a little to show the hard tan line where her cuirass usually stopped. She looked sweaty and happy and a little pink, but that was probably just the sunburn.

Krem had been in the courtyard when her squad had finally made it back from their last mission, most of them riding hastily purchased mules instead of the official mounts they’d been sent out with. Half of her unit had headed over to the surgeon’s barracks, the other half to the tavern, but there Harding had been, dropping down from a horse three times as tall as she was and limping her way up the stairs to the Nightingale’s tower. She’d looked tough but cheerful then, just as she looked tough and cheerful now, but looser, more relaxed, like all she ever needed was to be in her own element with her own people and things were right as rain.

“Refill, Aclassi?” asked Cabot, watching the both of them.

“Hey, come sit with us,” said Harding. “Bring your friends, they look like they’ve been trying to get your attention.”

Krem looked up. Dalish was miming…. something, while Skinner was making sustained eye contact while thoughtfully tapping her teeth with the point of her knife.

“Nah, they’re good,” he said.

 

* * *

 

“So,” said Krem. “Sheep herder turned Vint hunter. Impressive.”

He took another swallow of beer that he didn’t really want as Harding blushed so explosively that it traveled down her neck and across her chest before he could put his mug down again. Krem felt something in his face yank upwards and figured he might as well let it.

They had ended up by themselves in a corner, Harding’s scouts having begged off citing various excuses that Krem hadn’t cared enough to examine too closely. They were closer to the fire now-- too close, maybe, and he’d rolled up his shirtsleeves to try to compensate for it.

“That’s us,” she said. “Sheep farmers, tailors, and butcher’s daughters. Even some nobles, but they usually try and keep their heads down. Doesn’t matter though, it’s ruined all of us for real life.”

Krem shrugged. “It’s real enough. Anything that pays this good has to be.”

Harding wrapped her fingers around her mug, her eyes still crinkling at him. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t be saving up all that money for a cottage on the Storm Coast? My mother’s going to be so disappointed.”

“Eh, it’s your money, you do what you want with it,” said Krem. “Just make sure you hire somebody every two weeks to take care of your giant spider problem.”

Harding ducked her head, laughing, and Krem lifted a hand to rub his jaw, then clasped the back of his neck, and then took another drink. He then stared critically at his rolled-up sleeve, and gave it another push up his arm. Might as well.

“I have to ask,” said Harding carefully, and Krem went very still as something in the middle of his chest went tight. He kept his eyes on his brown forearm and the line of the muscle there. The thick hair that his mother had despaired of once, and the scar that the Chief had sewed up in the driving rain with a needle so small it had almost disappeared in his fingers.

“Ahuh,” he said flatly.

Harding drummed her small fingers on the tabletop, the bowstring calluses standing out like stones. “Is it weird,” she asked, “going from fighting for money to fighting for something that…… means more. In the long run.”

Krem’s face split into a grin; he couldn’t help it. “Nah,” he said. “Not one bit. Wanna know why?”

“Sure,” said Harding.

“Inquisitor. Lavellan, the Herald,” said Krem. “ You like her, you like following her. She keeps you fed, sends you on interesting jobs, asks you to kill all the right people.”

“Well, yeah,” admitted Harding. “I mean-- yeah. More or less.”

A pang went across her face, and Krem relented. He knew how that was, once.

“She took you out of the sheep business, yeah?” he asked, more gently, and Harding relaxed in response. “And you get to be Scout Harding,” he said, giving the words their full weight, “leading your boys off to adventure and glory and pot-shotting some Vints and Templars in the bargain.”

Harding grinned at him again, her shoulders loosening, and Krem leaned back in his chair, crossing his forearms in front of him. “That’s the Chief,” he said casually. “That’s how it goes, when everything goes right. You know they’ll send you where it counts.”

He paused, then added. “Less singing, usually,” and Harding winced.

“That makes sense,” she said, finally, tucking her hair behind one ear, before tilting her head at him. Her face was heart-shaped and as freckled as the shoulder of a speckled horse, and she still looked flushed and pretty and happy to be sitting there with him. Krem didn’t think he could ask for anything more than that.

“You’re really lucky, you know that?” she said, mild as anything.

Krem shrugged, then dipped his head to rub the back of his neck again. There didn’t seem to be much else he could do with his hands.

“And they’re not my _boys,_ ” she said, moving on like she’d been trained by Lady Montilyet herself. “You’ve _met_ them. Half of us are girls.”

“S’alright,” Krem heard himself say. “I like girls.”

 

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

“I think I’m being flirted with?” said Harding upon returning to the Scouts barracks.

“That’s always nice,” said Ansburg. “I wouldn’t know, but it sounds nice.”

Brigid kicked him without so much as looking up from her cards. Ansburg dropped his, but only gave her a mournful look in return. Or, possibly he didn’t. It was hard to tell; he had a face made for mournful looks.

“Congratulate the Lieutenant, Ansburg,” said Brigid tiredly, swapping a card from one spot in her hand to the other. Harding would have told her not to do that where people could see her, but the last time she’d tried, Varric had stopped her before she could get a word in. “Not every day somebody flirts with her.” She looked up quickly. “No offense.”

“My name isn’t _Ansburg,_ ” said Ansburg. “That’s where I’m _from._ I don’t call you Cow Pasture, I can tell you that.”

“Like to see you try,” said Brigid darkly, “See my bet. Then ask the Lieutenant about her nice fellow.”

“Is he?” said Ansburg, pushing another silver into the middle of the table with an air of distaste. “Nice, I mean.”

“Oh, well, you know,” said Harding, sitting heavily in one of the available chairs. “Yeah. Yeah he’s nice.”

“What’s his name,” asked Brigid, “and please don’t say it’s Ansburg’s friend Jessum.”

“He’s not my _friend_ \--”

“He’s a creepy sod with yesterday’s breakfast on his shirt and _you_ introduced us. Pay up.” said Brigid, laying her cards down, four out of five in the same suit and following the same order. Ansburg made a disgusted noise as she scraped the winning pot over to her side, but didn’t show his own hand.

“You know Krem?” asked Harding. “The mercenary? The one from Tevinter, but he likes it down here more?”

“ _Ooh_ ,” said both Brigid and Ansburg simultaneously.

“Nice,” said Brigid, approvingly.

“Pleasant fellow,” said Ansburg. “Awful hospitable lot, the Chargers.”

“Is that what he’s doing?” asked Harding uneasily. “Just being…. hospitable?”

Brigid kicked Ansburg again, and followed it up with a genuine glare. “Tell the Lieutenant that she’s not a _charity case.”_

“She’s not! You’re not, ma’am,” he said, turning, his face stricken. “Everyone loves the Chargers. And he’s, quite, dreamy, isn’t he?” he said, as if not quite sure how those words went together.

“I’d show him some hospitality,” murmured Brigid, swiping up Ansburg’s discarded hand and looking it over before rolling her eyes and shuffling it back into the deck.

Harding was leaning forward, her overly hot face in her hands.

“I joked about my _mother,”_ she said miserably through her fingers. “It was _smooth._ Since when am I _smooth_?”

“We can joke about Ansburg’s mother if you want. I bet she’s smooth.”

“My mother is a _LADY--”_

 

* * *

 

 

Dalish preened his hair with her fingers fussily, which Krem tolerated, as it seemed to keep her out of trouble. Her nails felt good on his scalp, besides, and it was nice being the focus of her attentions while she praised him extravagantly.

“Stop that,” said Skinner, leaning against the same stretch of fence bordering the training ground that they were.

“I will do no such thing,” said Dalish, sitting squarely on the hay bale that Krem was propped up against, his butt in the dirt. “He is a _very good boy.”_

Krem grunted neither approval nor disapproval, just acknowledgement, which Dalish seemed to take as encouragement. But then, suddenly, all three of them went silent as the Inquisitor’s Warden walked by, since having conversations around him tended to give him the impression that they required pertinent anecdotes of his horrifying life. The last one Krem had heard had been a particularly galling one about a dead dog that had driven Stitches to drink for the next six hours, and after that word had gotten out amongst the Chargers. The Warden now had the ability to clear a room faster than any Venatori blood mage could have ever _dreamed._

As soon as Blackwall rounded the corner and vanished, Dalish said smugly, “It was the arms. You showed her the arms.”

Krem shrugged.

“He did nothing with arms,” said Skinner. “I watch. They talk, talk talk,” she brought a hand up to flap it open and closed contemptuously, “then _nothing_. ”

She then spat. It landed with a puff of dust near Krem’s boot. Dalish’s fingers went still and chilly in his hair, but as far as Krem was concerned they weren’t currently _indoors_ and Skinner was therefore behaving admirably.

He stayed quiet for a minute more while Skinner ignored the both of them and began carving her initials on the nearest fencepost. Or, possibly her initials. No one was entirely sure if she knew which letters those were.

Dalish planted a very kindly kiss on the top of his head, and Krem, who had never had a grandmother, and had certainly never pictured her as a thirty-seven year old elf who had once tried to convince a Templar not to take her in because he clearly didn’t understand the principles of good theatre, felt content.

“Think I’m gonna ask if she wants to get another drink sometime,” he admitted. Dalish made an approving sound and thumped him on the shoulder. Krem let himself rock with the blow, a grin yanking at the corner of his mouth.

“I hope it is poison,” said Skinner.

 

* * *

 

 

Harding pinched the bridge of her nose, “So it’s all definitely--”

“Been poisoned, yes,” said her reporting Scout stiffly.

He had sunken eyes in a very thin face, and Harding couldn’t remember his name. He was very polite, but almost certainly one of Sister Nightingale’s plants meant to keep eyes and ears on every level of the Inquisition’s organization. Leliana almost exclusively hired very competent people (Harding should know; she was one of them), but lately the experience levels of each of these new hires had been…. dropping. Sometimes they didn’t even know who _else_ was a plant and became convinced that the others were also spies intent on learning the secrets of the Inquisition, only of the wrong variety. Harding couldn’t count the number of times she had seen two of them freeze at opposite sides of the courtyard just as they were tailing someone else, then dash off to give slightly hysterical reports to their handlers about enemy infiltrators. (Harding only knew this because she’d actually gone to Leliana with her concerns about her newer recruits, only to be dismissed with a casual wave. “They are learning,” she had said. “And their notes are very funny.”)

“ _How?”_ asked Harding.

The Scout shifted, but his face was impassive. He was undoubtedly better trained than some of his predecessors. “We found Darkspawn body parts at the bottom of the cistern,” he said. “Tied with wire. We think they were disposed there.”

“By whom?”

“It is unclear, Lieutenant,” said the Scout, and honestly she should really have remembered his name by this point, but she was distracted now. He flipped a page in his folio. “We have reports of a squad of Venatori within five miles of the outpost, who are now gone.”

“So they must have dumped it, fouled our water, then vanished,” said Harding.

“Possibly, ma’am.”

“With no other unguarded water supply in fifteen miles.”

“Seventeen,” said the Scout. “The nearest well here,” he pointed at a spot on the map spread across the table, “went dry last year.”

“Well,” said Harding. “Shit.”

She rubbed her temple again, and thought harder. “Can we _clean_ it? Or, send Wardens, maybe they know how to purify this sort of thing?” The Scout didn’t _quite_ hesitate, but it was close. “Perhaps if we ask the Warden Blackwa--”

Harding winced, and he stopped talking at once, looking relieved.

She folded her arms, looking down at the map.

_Oh shit_ was hardly all she wanted to say about the situation, but for the moment, it was all she had. She’d spent a solid week organizing the takeover of that well and the outpost that went along with it, and everything about the Inquisition’s advance into the West depended on the well’s existence. Without it, they’d have to reply on supply lines, and pretty much all of Harding’s newfound career relied on how easy it was to _disrupt_ supply lines, once you put your mind to it.

She inhaled through her nose, then out.

If there was one thing she’d learned about herself since joining up, it was that she still hadn’t quite figured out what she _couldn’t_ do once she put her mind to it. Not with all the talent around her, just waiting for the chance to be used.

“Okay,” said Harding, slowly, her eyes still scanning the blasted map as she thought, ideas ticking one after another through her head. “There’s a woman who joined with the mages who used to be a Warden. Fiona. She might have the information we need.” She paused. “Send Ansburg to talk to Blackwall.”

“Oh, _Maker,”_ said Ansburg in the background, horrified.

“Do it,” said Harding flatly. She then pointed at the map. “We go in, we take this other well, and we seed the hillsides with lookouts for the other--”

“Sister Leliana will decide what’s necessary,” said the Scout quickly, and her momentum faltered, her confidence disrupted.

Her head slowly raised, and she spent a moment studying him. He appeared to study her back, though his face still betrayed no expression other than polite attention.

His name still hadn’t occurred to her. She was beginning to feel less guilty about that.

“Yes,” she said, very carefully. “After I tell her all of the options.”

She thought her tone of voice was very professional, all things considered.

“There may be options that you have not considered,” said the Scout blandly. “I will be sure to bring them to her attention.”

The bustle in the barracks around them went abruptly very quiet, save for the distant noise of a distraught Ansburg trying to argue with a colleague that some direct orders weren’t as direct as _other_ direct orders and he shouldn’t be expected to know the difference.

Harding looked over the nameless Scout in front of her with his expressionless face and his perfect uniform and the bland, leather-bound folio in his hands that doubtlessly carried a great many orders from people a great deal more highly ranked than she was. She looked at him, and she thought about how she had never met him before, really, and he had _certainly_ never served in the field with her.

Then, slowly, and with a ringing sort of surprise, she realized that it didn’t really matter what his name was since he didn’t have _Lieutenant_ in front of it.

Harding had never really known how to feel about the whole Lieutenant thing before now. It was just a word, one they put at the front of her name to tell everybody else that she handled most of the paperwork.

Until, well, it wasn't.

Until she realized it actually meant something.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said very pleasantly. “Let’s you and I go talk to her together. I’m sure we can figure something out.”

 

* * *

 

 

Krem’s only real indication that something was happening was the slow, triumphant smile that slid across Skinner’s face.

“Look at her,” she said, voice dripping with satisfaction. “She is broken. You have broken her.”

Krem turned away from the bar to look. Then he blinked.

In the same table that she had occupied last night, in full uniform and armor, and with only one of her Scouts, sat Harding.

Drinking, heavily.

The dark-haired Scout at the same table had one hand on Harding’s and an expression on her face that said that this was all a bit above her pay-grade, but also, in true Scout fashion, that she would do her best if called for.

When he turned back, Skinner’s face was still alight with happiness. Krem frowned at her, which she ignored.

“ _Stupid,_ ” she hissed as he pushed off from the bar, but then she was behind him and forgotten.

The other Scout saw him coming, and looked from him back to Harding once or twice as if to give her an unspoken cue, but to no effect. Finally, she said, “Oh, hello, _Krem.”_

Krem had never met her in his life.

“Evenin’,” he said, nonplussed.

Harding looked up.

She looked, well.

Pretty, thought Krem, but he always thought that. Tired might have been an adequate addition to the list. Her ginger bun sagged on the back of her neck, and her freckles stood out even more against her face.

“Oh,” she said, then, “Oh,” again, and tried to sit up straighter, but Krem waved a hand with a low _nah_ and pulled a chair out towards himself,

“That’s if you don’t mind the extra company,” he added, realizing that he hadn’t actually checked. “I can--” he twisted to look back to the bar.

Skinner was gone. He wasn’t entire sure why he thought she would still be there in the first place. He turned back, a little discomfited, only to see the second Scout rising from the table.

She caught his eye and froze. “I’m just,” she said, “pissing. Off to piss. Gotta piss. It’s a whole, thing.”

“Sure,” said Krem.

Harding pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’ll be all, Brigid,” she said tiredly. The Scout nodded, then saluted, then left, her legs as stiff as if she were in full parade march.

Krem and Harding sat in silence, the bustle of the tavern going on uninterrupted around them.

Krem said nothing.

Harding also said nothing, but did stare lugubriously at her mug of beer before draining it with the kind of decisiveness usually only seen in soldiers before suicide missions.

(Krem had only ever heard the word _lugubrious_ used once by the Chief’s new pet, the shiny one from Tevinter, and until now it had only seemed like a ten-gold word tossed into a five-copper sentence to make the bestower’s generosity stand out all the more. He only knew the definition because the Chief’s new pet had paused after using it, then said, “Lugubrious. Meaning, extravagantly sad. You’re all peasants.” before drinking himself unconscious. The Chief liked him, but Krem’s opinion was…. mixed.)

Krem then realized three things in rapid succession.

First, that Harding was definitely not sober, and had been working on becoming such for a while now. She didn’t hold herself like someone who wasn’t, but it was there, in the slight glassiness of her eyes that might have been stress and might have been sadness but was probably just the effect of a couple of beers on somebody without a lot of body weight to soak it up.

Secondly, he realized with a small jolt that he didn’t actually know _why_ he’d come over other than that, well, she was here and he was here and he liked her. Her face certainly hadn’t said come over; she hadn’t looked at him at all. In fact, there was more than a slight chance that whatever she was handling, she’d been handling it just fine without some fellow with a crush inviting himself over and sitting down.

Third, he realized that at some point he had begun to feel, inexplicably, a trifle awkward.

Years of following the Chief around had mostly pounded that out of him, so it was surprising to realizing that he _could,_ in fact, feel awkward around someone again, but that didn’t mean he liked it.

He didn’t like it.

He never had.

He was just about to make his excuses and leave her to whatever was eating at her, telling himself that it damn well had nothing to do with _him_ , when Harding looked up from rubbing her face and asked in a hollow voice, “Have you…. ever yelled at your boss? _”_

“Oh,” said Krem, startled. “What? Yeah. Loads of times.”

Relief almost thumped him back into his chair, like one of the Chief’s love taps.

He didn’t ask who she meant. Everyone knew that the Scouts were directly under the thumb of her High Holy Left-handedness up in the squawking tower. Krem wasn’t sure if he could even picture what her response would _be_ to someone yelling at her, only that she was just shady and well-born enough to probably deserve it, if it made Harding that upset.

Harding blinked hard, then looked at him just as hard, a counterpoint to the slightly not-there feeling she gave off. “What, and _meant_ it?”

Krem shrugged. “Couple’a times, yeah. He got over it, we talked about it, things worked out.”

_Eventually,_ he could have added, but didn’t. Mostly since he didn’t want to subject Harding to the long story of how a younger, angrier Krem used to throw himself at the huge grey wall of a boss who really didn’t have an opinion on what body parts he came with or what pronouns he wanted to be used other than that he wasn’t going to question it.

Harding appeared to struggle with several response before one presented itself, but she eventually settled on, “How come?”

Krem shifted in his chair, and let the words come naturally. They usually did, when it came to the Chief. “He likes to push people. See where they’ll push back, and how far they’ll go before they do. He found out where that was for me, which wasn’t _very_ ,” he added in a lower voice, then continued, “and that settled things.”

“Didn’t you feel,” said Harding slowly, “manipulated?”

“A bit, yeah,” admitted Krem. “But that’s the relationship. He tells me where to go, and what to do, and if I don’t like it I can sod right off and draw pay from somebody else.”

Harding’s small fingers tightened on the handle of her mug, but she didn’t drink. “But it means a lot to you,” she said. “You couldn’t just _leave.”_

“S’why we talked about it,” said Krem without hesitating. “Why he found out where that line was ahead of time, so he’d know what I don’t like and what I won’t do. Helped us out in the long run, eventually. We don’t push each other, ‘cept where it doesn’t count.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’ve seen you two. He pushes you all the time.”

“Not where it matters,” said Krem. “Never jokes about me havin’ a chest or monthlies unless I joke about it first. Never brings it up at all unless I do first. Sends me where I need to be, knowing it’s something I’m able to do, and he’s good company in the meantime.”

It didn’t sound rehearsed when he said it, and honestly, it wasn’t.

Krem was well used to explaining the Chief to other people and figuring out the best way to translate what he actually thought (“A big grey dope with enormous tits and a big heart”) into something professional, but when it came down to Krem, the Chief and what they meant to one another, the words came easy.

So did dropping himself and who he was into the mix.

She knew, of course, she had to. Didn’t hurt to toss it in one more time, for his own sake. A sort of easy way to say what he _didn’t_ want to say, which was basically one more variation of what he’d spent too many years training himself out of. (“ _Are you sure? With me? Really?”)_

He didn’t do that, as a rule. Felt it, sometimes, but it wasn’t his to feel. Krem didn’t have doubts about what counted, and he never put himself in the position of handling someone else’s for them, end of story.

Harding’s eyes had gone from glassy to overflowing.

“That is so nice,” she said.

“Ah, well,” said Krem, embarrassed, but willing to roll with it. He palmed the back of his neck, the skin hot under his hand.

Harding let out a long, deep breath, and pushed herself back from the table a ways. “That’s…. More or less what Sister Leliana said, too,” she said. “She tested me. I…… _passed,_ I think. Now, anyway. Earlier….” she trailed off, looking at her mug, and then laughed a little to herself. She looked back at him, her heart-shaped face sturdy and fond in the lamplight, and he felt himself go very still. “Thanks, Krem,” she said.

Krem nodded, and let his hand drop from his neck. Let it rest on the table, his big, square fingers curled slightly.

Harding looked down, then away, then back to him, rueful, suddenly. But brave, or at least willing to try, and he’d always liked that about her.

“I like you,” he heard her say suddenly. As if she were reading his own thoughts and echoing them, like that skinny fellow who followed the Chief around like a ghost.

“Huh,” said Krem, after a long pause.

He’d never been told that he was much of a blusher-- he was too brown for that-- but he felt the hotness from the back of his neck creep over around to cover his cheeks.

“I do,” said Harding. “I like you flirting with me. You are, aren’t you?” she added quickly, her brow furrowing. “You can say if you aren’t.”

“Nah,” said Krem, his fingers curling a bit more on the table. “I mean, yeah. That’s-- you got it. Yup.”

He had a horrible itch between his shoulderblades just then that felt abruptly like Skinner was hovering disapprovingly somewhere nearby , and had to forcefully prevent himself from whipping ‘round to fend her off.

When he collected himself, he realized that Harding was actually holding his hand on the table, her tough, smaller fingers rough against his.

He hadn’t noticed at first, which to be honest, he attributed to having never had many opportunities in his life to be a boy in a crowded tavern who got to hold hands with the girl he was sweet on and have her smile back at him.

Some, he granted. More than a few, really. But never enough.

Harding, for her part, looked embarrassed in a way that seemed to have nothing to do with him.

“This is hard with humans,” she said, her tone chagrined, but cheerful, and her eyes creased at the corners. “You’re so _tall.”_

Krem, who had never been accused of being tall in his entire stocky, five-four-in-his-socks life, said nothing. He didn’t get the chance.

“Ma’am,” said a harried, overly loud voice from above them both.

Krem felt his drill-sergeant bark lunge to the forefront of his brain, but Harding beat him to it. “ _What?”_ she said, impossibly sharp for all the softness that had been there just a moment before.

A nervous, but frantic looking Scout stood at attention by their table, her hood still raised. It was the same dark-haired woman from before; Brigid, Krem remembered. The lousy card player. “It’s Ansburg, Ma’am,” she said. “He did what you ordered him to.”

“And?” said Harding, gripping Krem’s hand tighter while Krem’s chest gave a funny sort of inward leap.

“Well,” said the Scout stiffly, “He’s locked in the privy, Ma’am. Says the world’s a dark and horrifying place and he doesn’t know how to cope.”

Harding muttered a swear, and then something that sounded like “Ought to know better than to stay and _listen_ to him--”, and let go of Krem’s hand with a groan.

“Sorry Krem,” she said, and pushed back from the table. “I’ve got to go talk my private down.” She looked at him, then at his hand, and then blushed like a Maker-forsaken forest fire.

He nodded, “Harding,” he said. A dismissal, but a friendly one, he hoped. He didn’t think he could manage much more than that.

“Oh stop that, call me Lace,”she said, exasperated, and left to go save some small part of the world that belonged to her.

 

* * *

 

 

* * *

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

* * *

 

 

Harding would be the first to admit she was dubious about horses.   
  
Horses were, big. Not like the brontos they used for hauling, which were big in a manageable sort of way.  Likewise for sheep, who only ever got excited about something if the whole group got excited, and even then they still tended to accidentally run into walls and drop dead of fright.   
  
The baseline for horses seemed to be nigh-constant, unpredictable excitement. And the baseline for this horse in particular (currently doing its Maker-given best to destroy the inside of its box stall), seemed even less promising.   
  
Master Dennit beamed at her, all pride and red crinkles. “Fastest horse from my lines,” he boomed. “Just the thing for the Scouts.”   
  
Harding thought privately that the best thing for the Scouts was something small and sedate, rather in the manner of a Tranquil druffalo.     
  
“What’s its name?” she asked weakly, while the hammer-blow of hooves sent woodchips whizzing past the level of her ears.   
  
“Oh that’s Ozzer,” said Dennit in the same rough, happy tone, but then his face changed and he brought a hand up to the back of his neck. “Short for, er, Ostagar, truth be told, but some thought it seemed a bad omen. Pure foolishness.”   
  
Ostagar chose that moment to leave off his kicking and make a long, drawn-out noise like a set of bagpipes being dragged backwards through a swamp. The hairs on the back of Harding’s neck rose like wary hounds.   
  
Dennit beamed again. “The lungs on him! You can’t get that from any Orlesian breeder!”   
  
_ That’s because Orlesian stablemasters don’t typically introduce wyverns into their lines, _ Harding thought privately, but left off that dismal line of thinking entirely as the reality of her situation sank in.   
  
_ You asked for this, _ she told herself.  _ You signed  _ up _ for this.  _

That was the trouble with serving something like the Inquisition. At the end of the day, you were here because you wanted to be. If you  _ didn’t  _ want to be, well, for some the door was right there. 

For others, the door was still right there but Sister Leliana was standing right in front of it holding very incriminating paperwork. Harding’s only saving grace on that front was that people with pastoral childhoods who mainly worked with sheep had little in the way of sensitive secrets.

(Well… some did, but word generally got out. The Chantry usually sent someone ‘round to spout a few instructional parables about questionable urges until the uproar died down.)

Harding sighed, and felt her armor settle a little more securely on her shoulders.    
  
The Scouts needed horses. And the Inquisition, in all its benevolence and efficiency, had provided them.

Master Dennit somehow laid hand on Ostagar’s reins and coaxed him out of his box stall, murmuring sweet nothings into one devilishly curved ear as the cords in his forearms stood out with the effort of holding the horse as still as he could.

Ostagar’s version of holding still meant that he blurred around the edges.

Harding noted this in a very detached, unemotional way that she was sure would serve her well in the next ten minutes. Or ten years. Depending on how long it took her to recover.

The stirrups hanging from Ostagar’s belly were slightly above eye-level, and Harding was preparing herself to ask very politely for a mounting block when a voice came from behind her left shoulder. “Need a boost?”

She turned. 

And, oh. Well. 

Logistically speaking, yes.

 

* * *

  
  


In Harding’s experience, there were two kinds of Surfacers.

The first group did their very best to cultivate the ties and bloodlines that they had maintained in Orzammar since before the Stone was even capitalized. She’d met dwarves like that, mostly through the Inquisition, and they were…… fine. 

Well, Varric was all right. But even he dropped famous Houses into casual conversations like she was supposed to have a clue why House Meino wouldn’t be caught dead trading wine with House Ortan, and there  _ had  _ been that time he’d asked her where the surname Harding hailed from anyways. (She had no idea, frankly. She thought she’d heard her mother mention once that someone’s great-great-grandwhatsit had picked it out of a song. Maker, what if he  _ knew it? _ ) 

They were an insular lot. From what she understood of the caste system (which wasn’t much), they most likely couldn’t help it, but it made them uncomfortable if you had no idea whether your bloodlines came from Miners or Warriors or Small Home Repairers because goodness, what if you  _ married  _ them and the kids turned out funny? And it became even more complicated once you figured in how they felt about dwarves descended from the ones with those square tattoos on their faces, and while Harding was equally clueless about whether she was or not, she felt it safe to say that her ancestors hadn’t left Orzammar because of how inconvenient it was having all that money lying around. But elves?  _ Humans?  _ Forget it. 

As for the second kind...

Look.

Eventually, if you lived in the country in a mostly human community where all the nice dwarven youths had been snatched up ages ago (except the neighbor’s nephew, but the Chantry Sister had had that aforementioned word with him), your mother or your aunt or your older sister would take you aside and explain that…. well, tall people were all that there  _ were.  _ It was nice to hold out for someone your own size, but  _ Lace, you’re a pretty girl, your father and I have put enough by you, the farm goes to you no matter what, we just want you to be  _ happy. 

Harding’s aunt had been more direct.

“Get a stepladder,” she’d said. “Don’t worry about babies, if they ain’t dwarven. Make them introduce themselves to your father.”

Short or tall, Harding’s mother had never been overly familiar with any man other than Harding’s father in her entire life, but while Harding’s aunt wasn’t a black sheep _per se_ , she was still the only member of the family to have ever traveled past Lothering. (The only reason she’d come back home was to take care of her aging parents in their ramshackle farmhouse, and also because her Denerim-hailing wife had fancied a rural life raising bees. “Still got the bees,” she’d sniffed once. “Wife’s moved on to cheeses. Next year she says it’ll be soaps.”)

But while Harding had received only the most well-intentioned and ostensibly supportive advice on seeing someone a good two feet taller than her--

It had  _ truly  _ never come up.

And now here she was quietly literally staring up at someone she supposed she was supposedly currently seeing, and, well....  _ Huh. _

_ Goodness,  _ she thought.  _ He’s much more tan out of doors, isn’t he? _

The sun drifting down through the slats in the stable roof had no earthly reason to make him look even more sturdy and good-looking than he usually did, but unfortunately that was the case.

_ He’d make a good dwarf,  _ her brain continued to add unhelpfully.  _ Even if he’s not  _ square  _ square. More of a…. rectangle. _

_ It’s the jaw,  _ some other part of her replied, and it was only through sheer force of will that she prevented herself from telling herself out loud to shut up and climb on the murder horse already.

To her relief, Krem was no longer looking at her. 

Krem was looking at Ostagar, who despite all of Dennit’s efforts was beginning to vibrate at an even greater intensity.

“Well,” said Krem, “he’s a big ‘un, isn’t he?”

“Takes after his mother,” said Dennit happily, thudding one palm into Ostagar’s meaty neck. “Temperament and power all rolled into one. The very measure of a horse.” 

Krem placed one hand on Ostagar’s withers, then removed it as a metallic  _ shing  _ noise cut through the hazy stillness of the stables.

Harding looked down.

Krem wore greaves on his lower legs where the chainmail and hauberk didn’t reach.

There appeared to be a small gap in the steel on one of them that hadn’t been there before. 

It was currently glowing at the edges.

Krem and Harding automatically took a step backwards each.

Master Dennit didn’t appear to have noticed the momentary upset, but Krem’s face had now gone very blank and careful, rather in the way that the Inquisitor’s did when she had to speak to the Warden Blackwall. 

_ Oh Maker,  _ Harding thought.  _ I am about to murdered by something ten times as expensive as I am and it’ll be in front of the boy I haven’t even written to my parents about yet. _

That last part caused her a considerable pang of guilt, but not for that particular reason. Their last care package had included enough warm socks to carry most of the Scouts through to the end of the campaign. She hadn’t  _ thanked  _ them yet.

A line formed between Dennit’s eyebrows. “Best to get it over with, miss,” he said, sweat pouring off his arms with effort. “He hasn’t had his exercise in a day or so, and he gets antsy if you leave him waiting.”

“Yes,” Harding heard herself say. “Right.” 

Her brain sent all the proper signals to her arms and legs to step smartly forward and dislocate her hip in an effort to get one foot in the stirrup, but to her surprise and dismay, none of them seemed to be reaching their proper destinations. 

She just, stood there.

“I just thought of something,” said Krem suddenly, cutting through a solid four seconds of confused silence. Ostagar seemed to have reached full boil; the entire surface of his skin was twitching like a swarm of unseen flies had all landed upon it at once. 

“Oh?” said Harding calmly.

“Think I know a way to take some vinegar out of him,” said Krem. “Hold on a tic.”

 

* * *

 

“Say hello,” said Krem.

“Hi!” said Harding.

“Not you.”

“Oh.”

The elf Krem had brought back with him was thin in an alarming way, and she seemed to have an aversion to walking across open spaces when she could slink near the walls instead. Her ears were currently pinned as flatly to her head as the increasingly unstable horse’s before them-- only in her case they were much more heavily notched. 

Dennit had returned to his duties, and had merely double-cinched Ostagar to a ring in the wall before going off to help shovel a variety of dead hog parts into the pen where they kept that one perpetually hissing lizard-horse. The look on his face had been as smitten as it had been during Ostagar’s brief temper tantrum where he had attempted to explode in six directions at once and take all of them out with them.

The elf’s slightly wall-eyed gaze landed on Harding and stayed there as if permanently fixed. 

Harding felt rather like a field mouse in front of one of Sister Leliana’s ravens. Only, sweatier.

The voice that emerged from the elf’s throat was heavily accented and as flat as a tomb. “What problem am I solving?”

“The horse, Skinner,” said Krem. “Need you to have a word with him. You’re good at that.”

Skinner’s ear turned a hair towards him, but her eyes didn’t move an inch. “No.”

“You’re bored with the last one. We can tell.”

“I am bored with you. You are boring. You are stupid.” She closed her mouth and thought a moment before adding. “Your hair, it is bad.”

Krem yawned, rubbing the back of his neck. “You’ll need spurs,” he said. “The ones with the spikes in the heel. Horses like him don’t listen to the other kind.”

The corner of the elf’s mouth twitched, “I do not need these.” 

“He ain’t some farmhand’s pony,” said Krem. “He’s some Knight’s bloody charger. Still got all his boy parts.”

The corner twitched higher. “He does not need these.”

“Suit yourself,” said Krem. “Just take him out for a bit. Or I can get Dalish in here and she can do that gentling spell she does.”

Skinner’s face, which had already been sneering, turned so utterly in on its own sneer that it emerged wholly transformed, a perfect ouroboros of contempt. 

“I have a word for this horse now,” she said abruptly. “Several.”

“That’s prime, Skinner, it really is. Counting on you. Here--” said Krem, and Harding felt one of his square hands land politely on her shoulder, “You just-- you might wanna-- how about we just go over here for a bit and catch the air, eh? Bit quicker now, come on, there we go.”

 

* * *

 

 

  
“Here’s Demon,” drawled Krem as they reached another box stall. “She’ll be done with him, trust me. You two ought to get along all right.”

“That’s a…. colorful name,” said Harding carefully. 

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” said Krem. “He had a bit of a reputation when we picked him up but he’s, well. As you can see.”

Demon was a short, lean gelding the color of wet soot whose chief characteristic was the piebald mark stretching across the upper half of his head. He looked like any bored, off-duty horse until Harding realized that while dramatic noises were coming from the open area in front of the stable, and while all other other horses around jerked their heads upward in alarm, Demon stood perfectly still. One hoof cocked, ears disinterested, and giving every indication that his primary objective in life was to stare into the middle distance as if the front part of his brain had been scooped out and replaced with warm wax.  

“He’s sweet,” said Harding, and meant it. “You’re _ sure _ your friend doesn’t want him anymore?”

Krem shrugged and said “She runs through ‘em quick” as if to say,  _ so what’s one more?  _ and Harding tried not to think about what that implied, exactly. 

Demon did not offer to sniff a hand proffered to him, but he also didn’t mind having a rope thrown over his neck and being led out into the stable proper, which was all Harding could ask from a horse, really. She didn’t even have to elbow him in the belly to get him to puff out before pulling the cinch tighter, which was the sole piece of horsemanship she’d ever taken to heart.

Krem helped in an unobtrusive way that did more to settle Harding’s nerves than any amount of fussing over tack, and was quick to step out of the way while she dithered with the straps, which she appreciated. Half the time Brigid stepped in when Harding attempted to figure out what went where, and while both of them were very aware that Harding technically outranked her, that was difficult to tell from the language that was typically employed in the process.

Demon  _ was a  _ decent horse, and was in many ways the Tranquil druffalo she’d wanted in the first place. He accepted a bit with complacency and didn’t seem to mind that she had only a hazy idea of what the difference was between a crupper and a chest strap and didn’t have time to learn.

_ Time,  _ she thought with some distress as she pulled straps home and buckled them as fast as she could.  _ The ravens left with the packets at dawn, we have to be on the road and running by noon, how high is the  _ sun--

“These yours?” asked Krem, hefting a pair of saddlebags into her field of view. “Had the Scout’s mark on ‘em,  but I couldn’t be sure.”

“Yes,” she said, distracted. “Thanks, I can--” and she turned to take them, but Krem had already lifted up a flap and started buckling them in before she could start to look around for a mounting block that would allow her to reach that high. 

“I know how it is,” he said, his off-white teeth flashing.  “In my unit you never so much as touched a horse unless some noble needed a leg up.”

“We never  _ had  _ them,” said Harding miserably. “It’s Ferelden, we use dogs for everything. Why can’t we ride  _ them?” _

“Bring it up with the Herald,” said Krem. “I’m sure she’ll put some people on it. Before you know it the Scouts’ll be running around on mabari-back and the Venatori won’t know what hit ‘em.”

Harding snorted, cinched the last buckle home, and stepped back. Demon stood where she had left him with the same hip cocked and the same disinterested tilt to his ears as ever. A fly settled on one of his eyelashes. He didn’t blink.

“Well,” she said brightly, “that’s that, then.”

She turned. Krem was inspecting the stable rafters with his arms folded smartly behind his back, and that was the moment when Harding remembered what it meant when you told a boy you liked him and he took it upon himself to start being Helpful in your direction. 

_ Maker,  _ she thought, suddenly floundering,  _ this is the sheep fair all over again. Make eyes at one fellow and there he is ready to haul water and muck out the pens and ask your dad for his blessing.  _

Granted, she’d been seventeen the last time she’d been to the Redcliffe sheep fair, but she’d been so enormously successful that the lessons she’d learned from it were hard to forget in the years since. 

_ But you didn’t  _ do  _ anything with them!  _ another part of her brain piped in with alarm.  _ You were busy! And already seeing somebody! And, yeah, you appreciated the help but you were VERY CLEAR that that was as far as it went!  _

_ Besides, he didn’t help out just hoping for a kiss before I left,  _ she thought, distressed.  _ That’s… sleazy. I was about to be killed by a half-horse-half-rage-demon and he stepped in. That’s all. _

_ Maybe a friendly hug? Maybe if I were _ taller- _ - _

A horn call sounded from somewhere outside the stables. Three blasts, one after the other.

“Sounds like they’re ready for you,” said Krem, who didn’t appear to have noticed her sudden onset of paralyzed confusion. He let a hand drop onto Demon’s haunches with a companionable smack, then dropped to one knee, his armor creaking. “Ready for that boost?”

Harding felt her ears go white hot. 

Half of her wanted to demand  _ but what does that MEAN?  _ while the other half (admittedly, the one who’d gotten mildly tipsy after work and decided to tell the nice fellow she’d talked to a handful of times that she liked him and wanted to see more of him) felt itself brushing itself off and standing briskly to attention.

To her total surprise, she had already moved forward and had both hands on Demon and a foot in Krem’s grasp before she could figure out which side she wanted to win exactly.

This close, Krem smelled like soap and armor polish and boy. He had washed his neck and ears this morning and the skin was ruddy and pink and clean. Harding had one moment to think  _ If I were any good at this something definite and lingering would happen right now that would settle everything  _ before another, more startled thought broke through saying  _ goodness, this solves the height issue doesn’t it?  _ but that was all she had time for before he heaved her up onto Demon’s back.

The stirrups were already shortened as far as they could go, so she had absolutely nothing with which to busy her hands while Krem straightened up.

“There you are, then,” he said. “Good luck on the road. How long they got you out for?”

“A week,” she said. 

He grunted. “Nice. Chief’s got us out doing reconnaissance for the next ten days or so,” he said, then closed his mouth abruptly. 

She nodded without really thinking about it, halfway congratulating herself on making it through a normal round of small talk, before she had another one of those moments of harrowing clarity.

_ He’s telling you when he’s free!  _ shouted an inner voice.   _ He’s not hanging around trying to sneak a kiss or he would have done it when your faces were level!  This is the same as him saying he’s taking the wagon out to Redcliffe to bring back seed potatoes and asking if you wanna keep him company! _

“Right,” she said, out of nowhere. “I mean, yeah. Let’s do something.”

Whatever  _ something  _ was, it hadn’t occurred to her yet, but she thought Krem was looking at her in an encouraging way. Demon still hadn’t moved beneath her; she wasn’t even sure she could feel his ribs expand. 

“Uh, dinner?” she said finally, trying to think of what people did in these sorts of situations when farm chores were off the table. 

Krem nodded. “Alright,” he said, then his face cracked wide in a grin. “Dinner.”

They smiled stupidly at each other until the horn came again, three blasts. Arnsburg, undoubtedly, or at least until Brigid took the horn away from him. It didn’t have much of an effect. 

Harding wasn’t sure how long they would have gone on in that fashion if the sound of iron-shod hoofs connecting unevenly with the cobbles hadn’t broken through to both of them.

Ostagar’s neck was bent; his nose nearly touched the ground. His saddle and all his tack save his bridle had vanished, and foam dripped from his flanks. Before him padded Skinner on narrow bare feet, one rein in her fist while the other trailed behind them both. 

A dark substance seemed to be covering the lower half of her face, but her ears were up and her eyes were alight with triumph.

“Too much blood,” she said with enormous satisfaction. “I fix.” 

  
  


* * *

  
  


  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
